Immigration VS. quality of life

From Crikey.com.au:

Skills crisis v. housing crisis

Adam Schwab
Thursday, 20 March 2008

Perhaps an editor at The Age has a sense of irony, or more likely, politicians have a poor sense of economics. Today the broadsheet led with a story on Labor’s plan to relax working visa rules to "fast-track thousands of temporary foreign workers... to tackle the skills crisis."

On page three, an alarming headline stated that the Melbourne rental vacancy rate was below one percent and that the "home drought worst on record." The rental vacancy rate near the Melbourne CBD is 0.5 percent.

Sydney and Melbourne are suffering through dire shortages of accommodation, transport is completely overloaded, hospitals crowded while much of the southern part of country is experiencing severe drought. Not to mention carbon emissions which don’t tend to drop with a higher population. While doing little to solve those difficult problems, the Government is in fact exacerbating them by encouraging additional migration.

Further, the Howard government’s legacy of economic incompetence is again becoming apparent with the much maligned "baby bonus" increasing to $5,000 per baby on 30 June. The vote grabbing baby bonus is so ill-thought out it is an insult to pork-barrelling. For a start, there is no need for Australia to organically boost its population given that our major cities are already overcrowded.

Second, a Canadian study noted that 90 percent of recipients of Canada’s similar bonus planned to conceive anyway, so it was literally a cash handout which could go towards a new plasma TV. Third, if it the Government wants to actually encourage growth, the bonus should increase for subsequent children, rather than remain a flat rate.

The policy of increasing Australia’s population, by migration and organically beckons the question – what is a more serious problem, the apparent skills shortage or Australian’s rapidly diminishing living standards?

Full article


More on the housing crisis:

Migrants push up house prices

Renee Viellaris
May 29, 2008 12:00am

THE Federal Government has admitted that battlers could be squeezed out of the housing market by tens of thousands of new skilled immigrants.

A Senate budget estimates hearing has been told the extra 31,000 permanent skilled migrants will compete with local people for a place to live.

But Immigration Minister Chris Evans played down the issue, saying more skilled migrants would boost the nation's low housing stocks in the long run.

The revelation is bad news for many Australians who have been squeezed out of housing and rental markets by rising costs and a shortage of properties.

In the lead-up to last year's election, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd campaigned on delivering more affordable housing.

Migration deputy secretary Peter Hughes said increasing the permanent skilled migration program - which will stand at 133,500 in the next financial year - would reduce inflationary pressures and cut the cost of housing.

But the answer was not good enough for NSW Senator Marise Payne, who asked: "Where are they going to live? We are underbuilding by 30,000 dwellings a year already in this country."

Full article